the day David didn't ask me to marry him

Two years ago at this time, David and I were in a long-distance relationship (he was in Scotland, I was in North Carolina -- we were talking on the phone every day) and knew that we wanted to get married.  We were already discussing wedding details and trying to figure out when our respective schedules would allow us to see each other again.  Even though we both had no doubts about whether we were going to get married, the "official" engagement had to wait until David could fly to the States to see me and my family.  He wanted to "pop the question" in person.

This led to an inside joke between us.  During our phone conversations David would often jokingly ask me to marry him -- "practicing," he explained, "for the real thing."  Of course, I never answered him -- that was part of the joke.

David flew over to the States to visit me in November of 2008.  My 21st birthday was the 23rd of November, and he arrived just a couple days before that.  He was trying to think of a way that he could surprise me with the engagement ring, but that was going to be a challenge because 1) I knew that he was planning to officially propose (no surprise there, as we were already beginning to plan our wedding), and 2) I knew that he wanted to propose before my birthday, so that I would have my engagement ring as a birthday present!  That didn't leave him very much time to figure out how to catch me off guard!

David arrived on the Thursday, and my birthday was the Sunday.  On the Saturday, David dropped me off at work and came back several hours later to pick me up when my shift ended.  While on his way to pick me up, he decided that he was going to put the ring box on the passenger seat so that I would see it when I got into the car.  He threw his coat onto the seat and thought, "When she opens the door, she'll move the coat and see the ring, and then I'll ask her to marry me." Well, I opened the car door and saw the coat lying there, and all in one quick, unsuspecting move I picked it up, tossed into the back seat, and sat down!  Right on top of the ring box!  David immediately pulled the ring box out from under me, and without thinking, made a beautiful backhand toss, casually flipping the ring box into my lap.

His exact words: "There, it's yours if you want it!"

I opened the ring box, and there was a gorgeous diamond ring.  My response: "Will you put it on my finger please?"

And THAT is the story of how we became engaged.  Only later did we realize that David never did ask me to marry him -- even after all those months of "practice!"  And I never said yes!

However, he did successfully catch me off guard. :-D

We have had many, many good laughs about our unconventional engagement -- I'm certain that's not the only unconventional thing we've done, but it makes for a good story!

That was November 22, 2008.  Two years ago today.  And tomorrow we will have been married for 500 days.